Proposed legislation by which police should keep records of migrants so they can be identified in criminal matters moves forward.

Two bills allowing Israel police to build and expand use of identifying details
in criminal investigations passed through Knesset committees this
week.

The Knesset Committee on Foreign Workers recommended on Wednesday
that the police should keep records of migrants so they can be identified in
criminal matters.

Committee chair MK Ya’acov Katz (National Union) –
along with 11 other MKs – proposed an additional clause in the 1953 Law to
Prevent Infiltration, which states: “if a person infiltrated Israel or is
suspected of a crime, [the] police is authorized to gather his identifying
details… and include them in a database.”

“Due to an inability to track
[foreign workers] and a lack of identifying details, it is very difficult to
enforce laws pertaining to felonies, such as rape and murder,” the bill reads.
“The current situation does not allow the police to collect identifying details
when a person breaks the Law of Entry to Israel, and according to high-ranking
police officials, this makes it difficult to enforce the law and protect
Israel’s citizens.”

“Today, Israel police does not have any details about
those who criminally entered the state,” Katz explained at Wednesday’s committee
meeting.

“An identifying database will help the police in their work to
solve crimes involving illegal infiltrators.”

The explanatory section of
the bill points out that every tourist in the US is fingerprinted upon entering
the country.

“If the US gets fingerprints from every tourist that enters
the country legally, we should act in the same way towards those who cross our
borders illegally,” Katz added. “This is the minimum, basic thing we can do as a
nation that values life.”

United Nations High Commission for Refugees
(UNHCR) representative in Israel, William Tall, told The Jerusalem Post on
Thursday that the compiling of such information on new migrants or
asylum-seekers in Israel is not anything new. “We are aware that all people are
already fingerprinted as part of their induction process,” he said.

He
added that some even go through eye-scanning, along with the electric
fingerprinting done for all those processed in Israel, and that the UNHCR has
also been told by the government that they will not “move against employees who
are hiring asylum-seekers until there is a viable employment alternative for
them.”

On Tuesday, the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee passed a
bill for a second and third plenum vote, which would allow the police to keep a
database of fingerprints and DNA in order to identify missing or unknown people
who are injured in major incidents.

The law will also allow details from
the police’s criminal database to be cross-checked with fingerprints collected
from foreign workers and Palestinians.

Currently, fingerprints and DNA
taken from those arrested in Judea and Samaria cannot be checked in the police’s
criminal database.

A Shin Bet (Israel security agency) representative at
the meeting said that, had the law been different, it would have helped the
police catch those who murdered the Fogel family in Itamar earlier this
year.

In addition, the police will be authorized to sign agreements with
foreign-police forces to receive and give out information from the
databases.

The committee approved the bill, despite opposition from MK
Zahava Galon (Meretz), and representatives of human rights organizations that
attended the meeting.